Main theme of these blogs is for me to help you understand the Korean e-sports scene a little better so I guess anything pertaining to e-sports is appropriate. 

All right, let me begin by starting off where I left off last time, and if I do get off track I will get back on it whether in this blog or next so please understand, I am just going to write these down as it comes to me.

Guillaume (XD’s~grrr) was immensely popular with the fans so naturally he was the most sought after ProGamer by the TV networks. At this time there were three TV networks that dedicated themselves to broadcasting gaming related contents, mostly StarCraft since it was the most popular game, ITV(equivalent to fox network in the States, ITV is ITV no longer now) Ongamenet, and Ghemtv(Ghemtv disappeared into thin air after few years).


And every once in awhile he would get invited to be on one of the mainstream network programs, ProGamers getting invited to be on mainstream networks were a big deal and it still is. He really had a hectic schedule, which means I also had a chaotic schedule, with all the leagues, internet cafe event appearances, magazine, newspaper interviews etc.

We kept ourselves very busy. StarCraft was consistently getting coverage from the main stream media, newspaper syndications, imagine opening up the U.S.A today's sports section and reading the results of who won last night in the Starleague, and an interview on the player, it's wild ha, for me it was mind blowing.  

For an hour of appearing at an internet cafe to play games with fans, prominent players got paid between 1thousand to 3 thousand US dollars, and Guillaume did on a bad month just one and on a good month did 3 events so on top of getting a regular pay check, TV appearance fees, event money and prize money.... well you do the math.
 
There were around 20 to 30 thousand Internet cafes during those days in Korea and every time a new Internet cafe opened up having ProGamers to come and sign autographs and playing games with fans became a trendy event, it was the best way to promote internet cafes. Pc rooms also hosted many tourneys as well for obvious promotional reasons. I personally believe the pc room industry did a lot to help the gaming industry grow.

Popularity of these pc rooms, and other offline events is what made it possible for Hanvit, and the Ongament to invest in the live TV leagues in Korea; because of the overwhelming number of pc room chains, game publishers, and distributors always do heavy promotions, and business with them, you would have to be an idiot not to. When you have a great game you not only sell them to individuals through retail, but to already established 30 thousand pc rooms nationwide.

Many tourneys with descent prize money will attract many players, and next logical step of course is for players to form teams, and that is what happened exactly and in that order. To have edge and to win games, gamers realized you have to be part of a team to practice and consult with.

You've heard the notorious stories of destitute gamers getting by with just one bowl of noodles a day. Teams not having enough money to have heat during skin cutting winter, there actually was a time when gamers only wish was to eat three bowls of rice a day.

It's hard to imagine that nowadays for the gamers, to the new generation of gamers those stories are' Once upon a time ' ancient stories. First generation gamers had it tough financially and emotionally too because of the social stigma attached to gamers during those days.

I mean if you’re an aspiring pro chess or a pro basketball player, even though you may be poor at least people around you would always root for you and find it admirable, but back in those days society looked down on you if you were a gamer.  You can safely say the gamers back in those days had a poor disposition overall, not to say there weren't well off gamers but they were only a handful. In middle of these chaotic times Guillaume stood tall high and mighty, he was the best and StarCraft's biggest star in the year 1999 and 2000.

There were many leagues available but it was always hard for gamers to find sponsors. If you are an actor you must have an agent to get far right? After all not too many gamers are business minded, they just want to play games.  When overwhelming number of gamers emerged so did managers claiming the players and teams. When offline events became hugely successful, the game actually turned out to be fun to watch, offline events drew more than just participants, but spectators as well. It was an interesting phenomenon, nobody anticipated on this at all, at best having these seats filled up with participants would have pleased the sponsors, but to have so many spectators made the sponsors orgasmic. What is the next logical step? put the damn thing on TV!

Hanvit the distributor for Blizzard at that time in 1999 decided to host tournaments on TV and what a brilliant idea that was. Without a visionary TV producer this would not have worked. Ongament in my mind deserves all the credit in making the StarCraft game a successful spectator media event, because all the other leagues came after ongamenet, they are the true pioneers of our time if you ask me.

The very first TV Starleague was launched in 1999 called the PKO (ProGamer Korea Open), league this was broadcasted on the Tooniverse (cartoon) channel, 3 subsequent leagues were also broadcasted on this channel. Tooniverse is and was owned by the Onmedia company. After success of four immensely popular StarCraft leagues they decided it was safe to create a new channel called the Ongament, which was in the year 2000. A channel solely dedicated to broadcasting games 24/7!


Tv networks are all about viewerships and viewerships only and StarCraft a pc game! was getting the viewerships! Ongamenet's mother company is Onmedia that owns practically half of the cable networks in Korea. The other half is owned by CJ and some left over channels are owned by different entities, oh by the way Onmedia is owned by the Orion Corporation (huge company in Korea).

Well the TV ratings were off the charts and soon after the success of the very first starleague TV event, fans were able to see other networks host Starleague events, such as itv, ghemtv, mbcgame, and even the mainstream network SBS(equivalent to NBC in the US) hosted a tourney one time. Too bad SBS didn't continue with that, it was a one-time gig for them; can you imagine what StarCraft would be like today if SBS had continued with the leagues? So in conclusion StarCraft started out as a successful participant event that evolved itself to becoming a spectator event, and ultimately a media event, and in that order and I guess this is the case for all other sports as well.

Ok let me stop here and contiue next time, thx for reading.


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Thanks Lipton for helping me out with that

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